2.5/5 stars - An interesting collection of short stories that deal in a lot of body horror. I haven't read a ton of LaRocca, just one other short stor2.5/5 stars - An interesting collection of short stories that deal in a lot of body horror. I haven't read a ton of LaRocca, just one other short story collection, but this collection didn't really wow me. Nothing quite stands out, apart from a general disturbing quality that was clearly woven throughout....more
4/5 stars - This was a great anthology with many heavy-hitter favorite authors, and a few new discoveries for me. Some stories didn't work for me, lik4/5 stars - This was a great anthology with many heavy-hitter favorite authors, and a few new discoveries for me. Some stories didn't work for me, like any short story collection, but most were great. N.K. Jemisin, Rebecca Roanhorse, and Nnedi Okorafor can do nothing wrong - amazing storytellers. I loved P. Djeli Clark's novel "Ring Shout" but hadn't read anything else by them. And Violet Allen and L.D. Lewis are new to me and wrote my other favorites of this collection. Okorafor's story was my absolute favorite of the whole collection.
"Reckless Eyeballing" - N.K. Jemisin (Black cop Carl sees eyes on car headlights, which leads him to suspect that the driver is guilty of a crime.)
"Eye & Tooth" - Rebecca Roanhorse (Siblings act as supernatural job-for-hires, accept a job in rural Texas from a woman with a supernatural creature problem.)
"Wandering Devil" - Cadwell Turnbull (Man who moves from town to town meets woman who wants him to settle down. But something is off.)
"Invasion of the Baby Snatchers" - Lesley Nneka Arimah (Aliens impregnating humans and trying to take over Earth; detective lead is trying to track them down/eliminate/study them.)
"The Other One" - Violet Allen (Woman can't let go of her ex, keeps thinking about him, texting him sometimes with no response, then someone begins messaging him with weird then alarming things to lure the woman to the sender. Things get creature-strange.)
"Lasirèn" - Erin E. Adams (Three sisters are tempted by a siren, despite warnings from their parents.)
"The Rider" - Tananarive Due (2 sisters try to get to Montgomery, Alabama during the Freedom Riders movement.)
"The Aesthete" - Justin C. Key (Futuristic/sci fi story where a being finds out he's The Chosen One living in a futuristic USA that might or might not declare him legally a person.)
"Pressure" - Ezra Claytan Daniels (Written in 2nd person with main person the only half-black cousin in a mainly white family during a family reunion.)
"Dark Home" - Nnedi Okorafor (A single Nigerian-American woman's father dies and she travels to Nigeria where she violates customs during the funeral to keep a token to remember her father by. Something follows her home.)
"Flicker" - L.D. Lewis (Four friends try to survive in a world that's gone crazy because of unexplained blips of pure darkness that last increasingly long.)
"The Most Strongest Obeah Woman of the World" - Nalo Hopkinson (A woman confronts the beast that terrorizes her village in a coastal cave/tidal pool, but instead, the beast becomes part of her.)
"The Norwood Trouble" - Maurice Broaddus (A young girl experiences a lynch mob in the years before civil rights in the U.S. but she's in a kind of magical town where the orchard guards against would-be white infiltrators.)
"A Grief of the Dead" - Rion Amilcar Scott (A man grieves the death of his twin brother who dies during a mass shooting at a concert, then struggles with wanting to follow him in the same way. The horror in this one was minimal and more about the horror of guns and continued mass shootings in the US.)
"A Bird Sings by the Etching Tree" - Nicole D. Sconiers (Two young women are killed on a dangerous stretch of road in different decades. Their spirits are bound there, where they kill misbehaving male motorists to pass the time.)
"An American Fable" - Chesya Burke (A black military veteran is traveling to Chicago from the south after serving in World War 1 - he experiences all manner of racism from the whites around him, for whom his service to his country means nothing b/c he's black, and when he becomes under attack, a lone young black girl leads him to another place.)
"Your Happy Place" - Terence Taylor (A man who works at a prison moving prisoners to some kind of lab wants to find out more about what's happening, only to discover some unsavory things about himself. Futuristic, sci-fi horror.)
"Hide & Seek" - P. Djèlà Clark (2 young siblings must hide when their mother comes searching for them. The house belonged to their grandfather who practiced Hoodoo, and their mother and dead father also practiced magic that turned on them. Their mother is like two people, monster and teacher.)
"Origin Story" - Tochi Onyebuchi (This was probably a least favorite, just because I couldn't really understand it all. It's written like a play where 4 white boys become aware of their caricature nature and that they're fictional characters in a play, turning into an examination of whiteness as boys.)...more
3/5 stars - Perhaps like most short story collections, the stories aren't all great. In fact, most of them were a bit too esoteric to fully get into, 3/5 stars - Perhaps like most short story collections, the stories aren't all great. In fact, most of them were a bit too esoteric to fully get into, stymied by the phrasing and loftier literary verbiage. But some of them were great - perfectly succinct, strange, disturbing, visceral. If you're a fan of "Tender is the Flesh" and don't mind a short story, give it a shot and know that you can enjoy the ones you like and skim past the ones you don't....more
2.5-3/5 stars -- some of these stories were delightful in the sense that Keegan writes atmosphere, landscape, and insights SO brilliantly. Some I just2.5-3/5 stars -- some of these stories were delightful in the sense that Keegan writes atmosphere, landscape, and insights SO brilliantly. Some I just couldn't get into, but that's to be expected In any short story collection! She continues to be a new favorite author to watch.
3.5/5 stars - a good collection of horror stories ranging from creepy to gory horror, from original or fairy tale inspired retellings. Glad to have so3.5/5 stars - a good collection of horror stories ranging from creepy to gory horror, from original or fairy tale inspired retellings. Glad to have some heavy hitter authors in here, like Katherine Arden and Joe Hill....more
2/5 stars - This didn't really feel like a short story collection as much as it did a "novella" collection. That being said, there are 5 stories/novel2/5 stars - This didn't really feel like a short story collection as much as it did a "novella" collection. That being said, there are 5 stories/novellas, and they mostly missed for me. "Half the House is Haunted" was sort of interesting, but it was too drawn out and a bit boring to really get anywhere for me. "Argyle" was also sort of interesting, but it just felt like a lot of nothing went on. The ones that stood out the most for me were "Doug and Judy Buy the House WasherTM" -- this one was inventive and disturbing and fascinating. It moved quickly enough and had enough happening that I was fascinated, and it lingers. The other is "The Jupiter Drop" -- because what a crazy and implausible idea that would never happen but holy weirdness! If you're moneybags-McGee and feel like it, I guess (aka deep-sea submersible billionaires), then you can live in a one room glass box for 2 months while it "drops" through Jupiter? in space? but avoids the magma core? and there may or may not be forms out there in the planet layers that somehow seem like glowing, swirling, wormhole type visuals? Claustrophobic, like the "House Washer" tale, and also memory-rabbit holes, but it was so weird I liked it. ...more
3.5/5 stars - an unconventional horror story collection with the nuance of introspection, guilt of lapsed relationships and female friendships, and an3.5/5 stars - an unconventional horror story collection with the nuance of introspection, guilt of lapsed relationships and female friendships, and an examination of what it means to grow. Feminist in the sense that these stories were female-centered with an overarching “Why?� tied to each set of expectations, each bout of self-destruction, each clash with uncomfortable emotions. All 4 were still decidedly creepy, and each asks what it means when we embrace the darkness that overtakes us....more
4/5 stars. This was a deliciously horrific set of horror novellas/stories. Creative to a degree I've not read in quite a while, and all deeply unsettl4/5 stars. This was a deliciously horrific set of horror novellas/stories. Creative to a degree I've not read in quite a while, and all deeply unsettling. As someone who loves to read unsettling, unnerving, creepy tales, I appreciate voices I've not yet found. While I'm of the opinion that horror does not need animal murder/gruesome animal deaths, and generally avoid those authors, the moments of yuck related to that in these tales were momentary enough for me to skim past. (But seriously, why do we have to have this in horror books, just bc Stephen King loves a beloved pet murder? Let's change that, please and thank you!) Apart from some yuck, the creepy vibes had me consuming this book in a couple of hours in one sitting. I will definilty be seeing what else this author has written....more
3.5/5 stars - I’ll start by saying that short stories aren’t my preferred reading format, and so I tend to find them more difficult to connect with. B3.5/5 stars - I’ll start by saying that short stories aren’t my preferred reading format, and so I tend to find them more difficult to connect with. But these stories were really impactful in the subtly horrific ways they pointed towards loneliness, various relationship complexities, and how people, especially Asian people, tolerate everyday racism and digs at their humanity day after day. I will also say these stories and their mastery make me extremely interested in “Severance,� which I’m sad to say I never read!
(Update: Read “Severance� and loved it!)...more
This was an entirely unnerving collection of horror stories all set in or around the town of Goblin. The stories are horrific to varying degrees, and This was an entirely unnerving collection of horror stories all set in or around the town of Goblin. The stories are horrific to varying degrees, and deeply unsettling. "The Hedges" might just be my favorite of the six stories - the idea of such strangely horrible beings as the Goblin Police was just so fascinating. They seemed a bit like the Librarians of "Welcome to Nightvale." I also really liked "Kamp" about a man trying so hard to avoid being scared to death that he removes every barrier in his apartment so as not to be startled and sets alarms and video cameras to check. "Presto" was also fascinating with enough subtlety and mystery to keep you as in the dark as the members of the audience for a magic show unlike any other. Josh Malerman is a master of the strange, weird, disturbing, and unsettling, and I look forward to his future works....more
This was an interesting collection of sci-fi short stories with a focus on leading women; gender roles and their place in futuristic societies on otheThis was an interesting collection of sci-fi short stories with a focus on leading women; gender roles and their place in futuristic societies on other planets; the question of motherhood, regardless of whether a woman is bearing the child or a child is created in a lab; and the future of our planet, humanity’s survival, and the disappearing of our natural environment. As with most short story collections, some hit more pleasingly than others, but I really enjoyed all of the places, through space and time, that this author carried me for the duration of this collection....more
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